Constitution Requires Judge to Recuse When Her Campaign Ad Expressly Condemned Law Firm

So holds a Louisiana Court of Appeal decision from last week.

The recent race for a seat on the Louisiana Supreme Court between two sitting judges, Judge Marilyn Castle on the trial court and Judge Jimmy Genovese on the appellate court, was especially contentious. Campaign ads in the print and broadcast media funded by special interest groups escalated, costing the respective candidates' campaigns large sums of money. Such a campaign ad is the focus of the case before us, only the ad was directed by a candidate not against her opponent and not even against the PAC supporting her opponent, but directed against specifically named lawyers who contributed to the PAC.

In the ad at issue, The Committee to Elect Judge Marilyn Castle, designed, authorized and ran an ad that specifically listed named lawyers who concentrate in the area of plaintiff personal injury litigation, claiming that her opponent's judicial *impartiality had been compromised. The ad specifically named trial lawyers who "unethically" contributed large sums to his campaign, bypassing campaign finance limits on contributions by creating a special PAC to donate large sums to her opponent's campaign over and above campaign finance limits. PAC contributions, however, are clearly authorized by the Citizens United case and are neither unlawful nor unethical. In fact, public records of campaign financial reports, of which we take judicial notice, show that both campaigns received PAC contributions and/or PACs ran ads on their behalf. The ad in question stated in pertinent part:

"SHOULD PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS PICK OUR NEXT SUPREME COURT JUSTICE Or should you? Personal Injury Lawyers have contributed over $ 1,000,000 to Jimmy Genovese's campaign. Then, when ethics laws prevented them from giving more, 18 of the wealthiest of them poured another $ 945,000 into a PAC (Restore Our Coast) created to promote Genovese's campaign."

It is significant to note that this particular campaign ad was run prominently in the Daily Advertiser, the Lafayette newspaper in Judge Castle's "home base," so to speak, on November 6, 2016, only two days before the election on November 8, 2016. As shown in the exhibit, the ad featured Judge Castle, pictured in color in her judicial robes, smiling and wearing a large cross, while it portrayed her opponent in dark tones, frowning with a sack of money symbol next to the names of the "wealthy" personal injury attorneys accused of trying to "Pick Our Next Supreme Court Justice."

The law firm of Broussard & David, plaintiff/relator's counsel, was the only Lafayette law firm specifically listed in the ad, although their contribution to the PAC in question had been made by a company they managed, 557 Jefferson Street, LLC, and not their law firm directly. It is also significant to note that the campaign ad was paid for directly by Judge Castle's campaign, not a competing PAC. Thus, as the candidate, Judge Castle was personally responsible for the content of the ad.

Under these circumstances, the court said, Judge Castle had to recuse from cases involving Broussard & David:

Using the objective [Due Process Clause] test articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court, the question at issue now is: Does the tone and tenor of the ad, with Judge Castle's color picture in her judicial robes and cross, and her direct involvement in this campaign ad naming specific plaintiff personal injury attorneys, including Broussard & David, lead the reasonable person to conclude that, "Recusal is required when, objectively speaking, 'the probability of actual bias on the part of the judge or decisionmaker is too high to be constitutionally tolerable.'" …

The question really is not whether Judge Castle will tilt her ruling against the client because she still may be resentful of Broussard & David's financial support of her opponent through a PAC. One would like to believe that Judge Castle, who is reputed to be an honest, hardworking and conscientious trial judge, would try to do her best to decide the issues in the Valencia Daurbigney case fairly and impartially. However, under the recent jurisprudential standards on recusals, no "actual bias" need be proven…. As the Supreme Court in Caperton states, "the question is whether, 'under a realistic appraisal of psychological tendencies and human weakness,' the interest 'poses such a risk of actual bias or prejudgment that the practice must be forbidden if the guarantee of due process is to be adequately implemented.'" …

The gravamen of the recusal motion is not that Broussard & David contributed to a PAC supporting Judge Castle's opponent and the defendant seeks recusal on that basis. Rather, the problem in this case is that the ad in question did not directly attack Judge Castle's opponent, but instead singled out specific lawyers who concentrate in the area of plaintiff personal injury litigation, including Broussard & David, for allegedly unethically creating a PAC specifically for the purpose of bypassing campaign limits on contributions to a judicial campaign in an "unethical attempt" to "Pick Our Next Supreme Court Justice." As previously noted, the contributions by PACs are neither illegal nor unethical. The ad in question chills and challenges the legal ability of lawyers or anyone to contribute to judicial campaigns through PACs under the First Amendment, contributions lawful since Citizens United and its progeny were decided….

Public trust and confidence in the judiciary is already suffering. Looking at this case objectively, given the optics, the tone, timing and wording of the ad, it is implausible that this client, or any reasonable client under the circumstances, could have trust and confidence in the impartiality of the trial judge when the sitting trial judge hearing her case has published such an ad directly naming and attacking her attorneys….